Baldur Bjarnason“Opinion | I Predicted the 2008 Financial Crisis. What Is Coming May Be Worse. - The New York Times”
If anything, this downplays the risks as it seems to assume that there has to be something to "AI" to warrant calling it a "boom".
Not a financial analyst or professional predictor of things but it strikes me that there are quite a few things lining up to potentially make up a Very Bad Time™ for all of us:
- Energy crisis
- Gas crisis
- Fertiliser crisis
- Semiconductor shortage (because of the energy and Helium shortages)
- Plastics shortage
- Food price inflation
- Drugs shortage
- Private debt crisis
- "AI" stock market bubble
- Housing bubble leading to crisis
...
...
- Too Big to Fail institutions collapsing due to above crises
- Weather phenomena caused by the global climate crisis (heatwaves and hurricanes)
- Shortage of all sorts of important goods due to energy, gas, plastics, semiconductor, or food shortages
- Tungsten and rare earths shortage (China likes to cut exports of resources when other crises happen)
- Rise of authoritarianism pretty everywhere. Escalates because of other crises
...
- Too Big to Fail institutions collapsing due to above crises
- Weather phenomena caused by the global climate crisis (heatwaves and hurricanes)
- Shortage of all sorts of important goods due to energy, gas, plastics, semiconductor, or food shortages
- Tungsten and rare earths shortage (China likes to cut exports of resources when other crises happen)
- Rise of authoritarianism pretty everywhere. Escalates because of other crises
...
...
- US munitions depletion leading to all sorts of actors trying their luck.
- The deterioration of the reliability and security of the software holding the world together because the industry went all in on YOLO vibe coding.
- Ongoing tariff war (that's still a thing)
- Ongoing Cuba crisis
- A recurrence of the Greenland crisis
- Taiwan
- The entire middle east is a mess that's getting messier
...
- US munitions depletion leading to all sorts of actors trying their luck.
- The deterioration of the reliability and security of the software holding the world together because the industry went all in on YOLO vibe coding.
- Ongoing tariff war (that's still a thing)
- Ongoing Cuba crisis
- A recurrence of the Greenland crisis
- Taiwan
- The entire middle east is a mess that's getting messier
...
...
- The Ukraine war is still a thing. If Ukraine wins, that means Russia has collapsed or is about to and a bunch of nukes come into play. If Russia wins, they're emboldened to continue.
All of that is just off the top of my head. If even half of these things come to a head over the next year or so, we're in for an extraordinary bad time
Like, worst in decades. So bad that we pretty much have to hope that we simply get lucky and things dissipate safely somehow.
And I haven't even outlined any of the actual worst case scenarios – nuclear escalation in the middle east, a new global pandemic, a heatwave with sustained high (35°C) wet-bulb temps – because there's no real point in scaring yourself with shit you can't do anything about
(Forgot to put a content warning when I first posted this. Apologies.)
Saupreiss #Präparat500 🗽So which of those you can change anything substantial about? 🫤
@Saupreiss I mean, you can prepare for shortages, cut down consumption, and bolster your ability to weather a long economic crisis. You can do stuff to maximise your odds of coming out of many of these crises safely, even if you can't prevent it or avoid it entirely. But there isn't much you can do to increase your odds of surviving nuclear war or a lethal heatwave except to have fled before it happened and hope that you fled far enough.
@baldur (and early enough before the place is considered „Full“). When we‘re with pessimisms, thats one of the things that kills me morally: That destruction of human habitats is going to require „defending“ these places.
I dont care about myself, I had my life. But it kills, kills, kills, kills me what this does to children and means for their adult lives if there is even going to be one.
Andrew Radev@baldur The way I cope is by considering some possibilities for good outcomes. For instance, I regularly see posts that wind and solar have been much more effective than previously estimated. Electrification of cars is happening surprisingly rapidly in my home country of Bulgaria, which I wouldn't have expected. A friend recently told me that his hybrid car is shockingly cheap to drive in the city. (Electric cars have their own baggage re: rare minerals, but that's another topic to unpack).
None of this is to say we won't have a Bad Time re: climate change, some of that is already happening, just that we might be going in the right direction. War and oil shortages might be another nudge to European lawmakers at least that renewables are the way forward. In case gas-related pressure from Russia was not indicator enough.
Economy crashes connected to oil and AI in the US could be another blow to the lobbies in the EU. The narrative right now is the EU needs to be "competitive" with the US, because look at how good their markets are doing. That narrative is not going to survive the bubble(s) popping.
Re: Russia and nukes, I've always believed that Putin will eventually be assassinated by someone in his inner circle when and if the war with Ukraine turns into a loss. The propaganda machine would turn on him as the sole reason for the loss(es) and whoever takes power would run back and consolidate and frame it as something other than a loss. Nukes means the leaders in charge are retaliated against and these people want to live forever, not die in glory.
I don't know how likely any of these outcomes are, not arguing with your fears -- I agree that all of what you describe is real risks. Just that I do still hold out some hope that certain things end up not as bad as they could go.
@AndrewRadev "The way I cope is by considering some possibilities for good outcomes."
That's really good advice.
Peter@baldur The curse* of being able to perceive and think the world systematically, eh?
*I actually think it's great, but my brain just works that way naturally, sooo. It sometimes leads to very frustrating conversations with people who can't do it, though. Or worse, refuse. Especially on climate and the rise of fascism!
SeanBurlington 🌈 🕊️@baldur but nobody knows what will happen
It sure isn't goin the way Trump expects
Maybe it all backfires, and accelerates the energy transition
These are times of desperately high risk
We have truly opened Pandora's box, but never forget that it contained hope
Sören Meyer-Eppler@baldur oof. Can you do a happy path scenario off the top of your head as well?
@BuschnicK Renewable energy should get a massive boost worldwide from all of this.